I have known a bit about this movie some time ago, and I slightly remember that this was one of those slasher movies that I kind of enjoyed. A horror movie that I do not need to be really scared of like those supernatural kind. Anyway, I was a bit surprised that my wife was willing to accompany me to see this one. Apparently she had the courage to see this because she did see some of the previous movies as well. So as soon as the movie premiered yesterday, we both wanted to see this on its first day. OK let's start with the movie now.
Brief Story Line
Forty years after the event from the original movie in 1978, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis - Freaky Friday, The Tailor of Panama etc) was now living like a hermit in a house all by herself. Her only daughter Karen (Judy Greer - The 15:17 to Paris, Carrie etc) who kept her distance from Laurie had been married and had a teenage daughter named Allyson (Andi Matichak). Allyson was best friends with Vicky (Virginia Gardner).
Meanwhile Michael Myers (Nick Castle) had been in prison ever since, and being treated by Dr. Sartain (Haluk Bilginer) who was very intrigued by how Myers' mind worked. On the night before Halloween, Myers somehow managed to escape and went on a killing spree while trying to search for Laurie again. With the help from local police officer Hawkins (Will Patton - The Postman, Falling Skies TV series etc), Laurie tried to fend off Myers' attacks while trying to save her family.
What would happen to them on Halloween night? Find them all in this rather gory and quite scary horror slasher movie.
End of Brief Story Line
Honestly I could not remember the original 1978 Halloween movie (Heck, I don't even remember if I had seen it. Perhaps I only saw the other movies or the remakes). Anyway, this film was a bit strange because it was a direct follow up to that movie and from what I understood, it ignored all the sequels in between. So what we could do was just see this one as a rather "stand alone" movie and forget all the previous Halloween movies despite some of them also had the same characters involved and telling the story after the first movie.
When I saw this last night, I felt that the first half hour was a bit slow. It was focusing a lot on what Laurie's character had become as well as the background story of her daughter & grand daughter. Not until Michael Myers escaped when the horror began. As I said earlier, this was a slasher genre, so the horror was not supernatural kind that was creepy. In here, the horror was more towards seeing those horrific scenes and a seemingly senseless killing by a "maniac" serial killer who seemed to be able to avoid being dead.
The killings were usually done in a really sadistic way and probably disturbing to the viewers who are unaccustomed to such scenes. Unfortunately though, some of them were probably too violent that the Indonesian censorship body had cut few scenes (one notable was the scene towards the end). In fact, when I checked the movie detail, it was supposed to have 106 minutes while the one shown in Indonesia was only 104 minutes. So there was a total of around 2 minutes most likely very disturbing images that was gone that made me a bit dissatisfied. However, even with those cuts, we still could see plenty of those killing scenes.
Just like the usual slasher movies, there were a lot of jump scares throughout the movie (again all of them appeared only after the Myers' escape). In a way, the first half hour was a good build up towards a next 1 hour+ suspenseful part. Unfortunately though, that part might have been a bit too slow paced and made some of the audience felt bored as they played their handphone during that time which disturbed us. And the most irritating part was even during the suspenseful scenes, few still played as well (probably they were too scared to see the movie and chose to see their handphone?).
One thing that my wife and I enjoyed was definitely during the scenes when Laurie had to face Myers which I thought was a great finale. Btw, we waited till the whole end credit scene and there was no mid or post scenes afterwards. The sometimes silence and the musical sound truly added the suspense and thrill. The blood effects were great. Myers character (played by Nick Castle who portrayed him first time) was really scary. I also loved how his original face was never showed, leaving a scary sense of only seeing his masked face. And the sound effects were amazing, even if it only had a Dolby surround 5.1 (no wonder there was no Dolby Atmos effect mentioned in the studios). Finally Jamie Lee Curtis seemed to fit in playing horror movies. Funny thing was she actually left me a good impression when she played the more comedic roles like in Freaky Friday or in True Lies. Meanwhile I thought Judy Greer's character was only interesting in the final part, whereas newcomer Andi Matichak did not get to be the main heroine here with the strong presence of Jamie Lee Curtis.
Overall I felt this was a fun entertaining slasher movie. Those interested in seeing such genre would definitely enjoy it, especially when similar movies seemed to be decreasing in the past few years, replaced by the supernatural horror movies like the Conjuring series (or Indonesian horror movies like Danur, Pengabdi Setan and the many films that tried to imitate their successes). However, if you are fan of Halloween series, you have to disregard the story line and forget all the sequels & remakes that you have seen to appreciate it. I also thought that people who had not seen the original (or the subsequent sequels), could still enjoy the movie as the plot was not too difficult to understand. Be warned that you got to be patient a bit in the early part so you could enjoy the whole movie, just like I did and my wife (who with the rest of the audience sometimes had brief scream multiple times) did too.
Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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